Convergence
by TrenchcoatsAreSexy
Summary: House encounters Jesse in the clinic, leading to a deal... and a relationship that could bring House down forever.
1. Chapter 1

Convergence

Chapter One

House didn't want to admit it, but he deeply missed living with Wilson. He missed being awoken by Wilson's early-bird habits; he missed the jibes he could get in and the pranks he could pull against the oncologist. But most of all he simply missed Wilson being there; he was the one distraction, other than Cuddy, that could get him to forget about the ever-present, ever-killing throbbing of his leg. And now the Cuddy distraction had passed.

He wanted Wilson to offer. He wanted to turn Wilson down, to make it appear that he was doing his best friend a favor by moving in as opposed to the other way around. But he was a few steps away from actually, actively begging. It was utterly humiliating.

House was thinking this over as he stared at his ceiling, willing him to go back to sleep for the half-hour he had before he needed to leave and come into work.

Before he needed to leave and face Cuddy again, which was getting harder and harder each day.

He had been happy, or at least as close to it as he figured he was actually genetically wired to be. Happier than he could ever remember being, even before the infarction.

Sleep failed him. He stood up instead, took a slow and hot shower, and then returned, dressing and making his way out the door and to his car. He climbed inside and drove in silence, wishing he could have figured out anywhere else to be other than the hospital today.

It didn't help that the first thing he encountered upon walking in was a memo from Cuddy telling him he needed to go directly to the clinic.

"Exam Room Two," was the specific request. "Stay there."

Upon reluctantly entering Exam Room Two, House discovered that his first patient of the day was a blue-eyed young man in his early twenties with a shaved head.

"And what seems to be your problem today?" House inquired.

"Yo, I got a pain in my neck," the young man replied, leaning it to the left and wincing, as if to demonstrate.

"Okay," House replied. "What were you doing when you hurt your neck?" The man's bright blue eyes seemed to glaze over at the question. "It's not that difficult a question, you know," House continued. "What… were you…" The man cut him off angrily.

"I was getting beat up, okay? By a fucked up old guy with a messed-up ear." House raised an eyebrow, as if expecting the young man to add "yo" to that sentence as well. Regardless of anything else, House was how intrigued. Admittedly, a "pain in the neck" was not particularly interesting diagnostically, but this did sound like the beginning of an interesting or amusing story.

"By an old guy with a messed up ear?" House prompted as he reached out to take a look at the offending neck muscle. "Tell me more." He pressed gently on a large red bump that had formed on one side of the neck, and the man let out a grunt of pain.

"He's just a big asshole," he replied, "Made me leave town."

"An old asshole, apparently," House pointed out, and the patient rolled his eyes.

"Scary old asshole."

"I see," House said evenly, picking up a chart. "Have you had any other symptoms recently that may be important for me to know about?" The man looked as if he was thinking, considering, and then ruling out telling House something. The diagnostician sighed and reached down, rubbing at his thigh in frustration. "Come on." He sighed, and then tried a different approach; he lowered his voice slightly and spoke conspiratorially. "You know that under the law, anything you tell me is doctor-patient privilege. I can't reveal anything you tell me to anyone else." The man's eyes widened slightly, and he took a deep breath.

"You're serious?" he asked. House nodded.

"As a heart attack. Which you could have… if there's something more you're not telling me about." There was a pause, and House suspected that the truth wasn't going to come from those lips after all. But a second turned to another, and House simply let the silence rest. The longer he spent on this clinic patient, who might actually be interesting, the less time he had to waste on the others, who were much more likely to be completely uninteresting.

"I was a meth manufacturer." House blinked. When he considered it, he wasn't all that surprising. It was obvious that the young man used meth – a simple look at his fingertips and his lips confirmed that hypothesis. But a manufacturer? It had been quite some time since House had encountered one of them.

It was interested. And where did this old man with a messed up ear factor in?

House walked over and locked the door.

"I see." He narrowed his eyes.

"Me and this older guy – not the one who beat me up – we… cooked together. Real nice partnership. But then… shit just got crazy. We…were on top of it for a while, man. Then… I got greedy, met a girl, fell in love, got into really heavy shit…" He stared down at the floor, swinging his legs against the examination table.

"She died." He still didn't look at House, and House still didn't interrupt. "We started working for this guy… a big manufacturer, like crazy. Huge production." The man swallowed and looked back up at House, locking eyes. "You promise this is all confidential?"

"I promise."

"He made me kill a guy."

The words were barely audible, and House leaned closer to make sure he had truly heard them.

It was like something out of a movie; a horror show that House had stepped into on the worst of days and with the most lackluster of intentions. But now he was in. He'd treat this man, he'd… help him, but was there a cure for this? The illness that ailed this man was unlikely to be found in House's physical diagnoses.

Suddenly, House needed a name. He didn't know why, just desperately needed to put a name to a face.

He didn't hear himself ask, nor did he know what made the man answer, House knew, honestly.

"Jesse Pinkman."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Jesse Pinkman, when he was all patched up, walked out the door and quickly realized that he had nowhere to go. He had money, of course, he'd brought enough of it with him, but he couldn't shake the thought that he would look down at it and he would see it wet, tinted red with blood.

_Gale's blood._

He shuddered, then silently cursed himself for that thought. _What, we're on like a first-name basis now? You really get to know a man when you shoot him in the head?_ He continued to taunt himself cruelly – he was always hardest on himself, never on anyone else.

Jesse had lost track of the numbers of days since he had slept. This had helped him deal with the fact that he didn't have anywhere to sleep. He could rent an apartment, but then memories of Jane would flood back, Jane who he had killed, in his mind's eye, as clearly as he had killed Gale.

He hadn't wanted to hurt either of them. But Gale he had needed to kill, to save his partner – the man he had pledged allegiance to even though most of the time all he brought him was utter despair.

He didn't need speed to stay awake; not now – not anymore. He was using it, of course – he wasn't sure if he had ever stopped, really, after that line in the car. After this all got turned one more crank on the rack. He had caused all of this, even though he knew what he had done was right. Even if it was right, that didn't change the fact that what he had done to Gale – there was that first name again, had he even known a last name? He couldn't come up with one – had been completely wrong by any set of morals.

Jesse looked down and saw that his sneakers were scuffing against the concrete, and that he had wandered off in some direction away from the library. He didn't know quite how long he would stay here, but he knew he had to keep going. Mike could be just around the corner – perhaps his "get out of jail if you get out of town" card was a lie, and he was only waiting to hunt him down and kill him somewhere where Mr. White would be unaware. So he had to keep moving. Maybe when he got to Canada he could rest.

Canada – he didn't know that much about it. Maybe he could board a plane, if there wasn't some alert out for him (if people hadn't figured out it was he who had snuffed out Gale's candle so bluntly, if it wasn't written on his face as plainly as a thick black tattoo) and he could go to New Zealand the way he had planned to with Jane.

He missed her so much. Maybe he could just run off into the ocean and float away, join her somehow. He didn't know if he believed in all that, in a better place. He was sure he didn't believe there was a better place for him. He was the bad guy, after all – always the bad guy.

Emotional pain could manifest itself in physical ways. House knew this; it had happened to him before – he could remember his arm aching, being pulled into a sling as he tried to figure out how to get himself and Wilson out of the traps set by Tritter and only succeeding in making this worse.

Now, this point was proven again, but only worse – he lay down, looking up at the ceiling through blinding pain behind his eyes, in his leg, up through his thigh and down to his toes which felt as if the nails were being burnt off over a hot stove.

This was as bad – maybe worse – as when Stacy left. Why did he continue to allow himself to think that he had a shot at happiness? He only fooled himself, and the pain only came back tenfold after it abated for a period, like his body stored it up and it all continued to explode when the dam burst.

His thoughts drifted around lazily, and he couldn't stay on one for long enough to distract himself from the throbbing, endless pain.

He found himself thinking about the odd clinic patient. Pinkman, he'd said his name was, and he looked as if he hadn't showered in days. House wrinkled his nose at the thought, but it wasn't a big deal – he had smelled far worse. But more than the unkempt nature of the man, what had stuck in House's mind was the look in the man's eyes – shattered.

Maybe like what someone else could see in his own eyes, now.

What had that man confided in him?

He'd had to kill a man.

House's thoughts drifted back to a hallucination after he had been shot. He'd sliced opened a man's chest because he had been sure it was a hallucination, but then he hadn't woken up, and there had been that horrible, gut-crunching moment of realization that he had just taken a man's life. Not screwed up and lost a patient, though that was horrible, but actively taken a man's life.

Then he had woken up.

Or when he had tried to kill Chase, spurned on by illogical rage from the hallucination of Amber that was his subconscious mind.

Had it been like that? Had Pinkman simply done something and not realized why, just followed orders with no understanding of what they actually meant, only to discover the reality later and then had to run from himself? It was obvious that he was from far away – but where? Could House pinpoint the place?

And why did Pinkman look so innocent, like a scared child?

And why did House care?

It was something to keep his mind trained on, that was why. It was something to keep him occupied; nothing more. It was something to help him, mental running laps, push-ups.

_What if? What if? What if?_


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Jesse couldn't help but wonder what Walter White was doing now. He couldn't call him – for all he knew, Gus and his men had all of Mr. White's things bugged, and a call to him could mean the end of him. But he couldn't stop his mind from going back to that man.

It wasn't going to do anyone any good for him to sit and dwell, though. He needed to keep his eyes on the road ahead, not let himself get off-course. He was going to escape, to get away.

_I can get so far away no one could ever find me. _That was what he had told Mr. White, desperately, trying to vouch for any plan other than killing Gale.

That was what he needed to do. When he could no longer look back beside him and see Gale's face, then he would have run far enough. When he didn't have to worry about Mike's gun jabbing him in the back if he let his guard down, he would have run far enough.

But in the meantime? He couldn't stay awake forever… And how long had he been sneaking ten-minute naps on buses next to homeless guys since he left ABQ?

Jesse stuck his hand in his pocket. He still had money on him, though he was trying to keep as much of it as possible until he could start over somewhere. Maybe get some supplies and a partner and start cooking again, go back to his old life. Meet a sexy new chick and have a completely uncomplicated, sexy, fun time with no strings attached. No falling in love, no responsibility.

Though as appealing as that sounded, all he wanted right now was a bed that he could lay his back on, because it was beginning to cramp up, and hard.

He looked back and forth between the crumpled-up twenties in his pocket and his cell phone, which he was surprised hadn't yet gotten smashed along the way.

Or maybe… maybe there was a third option.

"House. Patient asking specifically for you," Cuddy declared as she walked into her ex-boyfriend and current employee's office. House looked up and gave her an apathetic glance, and she sighed. "Is the plan to mope me to death? Or into getting back with you? Because it really isn't going to work. I guarantee it."

"Who said there was a plan?" House replied, "And I don't feel like seeing this patient unless there's something cool going on."

"Says his name's Jesse Pinkman. Said you remember him." House cocked an eyebrow.

"All right. Send him in."

Cuddy disappeared, and the skinny, lanky young man from earlier appeared in House's office.

There was something haunted about his eyes, and House thought back to the strange confession from earlier. Maybe, maybe this had been a huge mistake, and this was going to be another situation where he ended up getting shot and having a boatload of bizarre hallucinations roam through his head.

It was a testament to how shitty House's day was going that that was starting to sound like an improvement.

"Hi, sorry to come back," Jesse said quietly, looking at the floor instead of the doctor in front of him.

"Well, that's what the hospital is there for," House retorted. "It's there so that you can go to it."

"Can you admit me or something?" Jesse asked, ignoring House's sarcastic comment completely. "I haven't slept in an actual bed in days and I need to… and I have no money anymore."

"Anymore?" House cocked an eyebrow, interested. "Meaning that you did have money at some time in the past."

"Yeah," Jesse retorted. "I had more money than I knew what to do with, actually. Now I don't – like I said, I got run out of town. I didn't really have time to stop at the bank."

"Where are you planning on going?" House continued, still continuing to ignore the other man's sarcasm; _I have a monopoly on sarcasm here, kid,_ he thought to himself.

"Canada, I guess," Jesse replied blandly.

"How specific. You do know that Canada's a whole country, right? There's a lot of it. What part of Canada?"

"I don't know," Jesse snapped. "The part that doesn't speak French! Why do you care?"

"I don't know – why are you here?"

"I don't have anywhere else to go," Jesse told him. "So are you going to help me, or not?" House responded by reaching into his desk and retrieving the amber-colored bottle of Vicodin and popping a handful. "Isn't that bad for you?" Jesse inquired, rolling his eyes.

"I don't know – is it?"

"Listen, if we're just going to play ring around the rosy, I'm going to fuck off and go… do something…"

"Sell yourself?" House prompted infuriatingly, and Jesse stepped forward, wanting to slug the man.

"Hey, man, if you're not going to help me…"

"You're going to fuck off. Yeah, you've said. But you haven't fucked off. So, what is your offer? If I help you out, what do you propose to do for me in response?" Jesse's eyes went wide and he curled up his nose.

"I hope you're not implying that I need to sleep with you, because that's fucked up, you're a doctor, man…"

House, for once in his life, actually looked a little shocked.

"No! That's… no. That is not my particular forte of interest. For one, I like my women… women."

"That's good to know," Jesse replied with a roll of his eyes, but a moment later he understood. His gaze stayed on the man's pill bottle, so fervently attached to his hand, as if it could run away if he didn't watch it closely enough. "You… want me to cook for you. Something… something like this." He reached out, picked up the pill bottle and read the information, watching as House flinched slightly, like someone handing a stranger their baby to hold and being terrified that they were going to drop the kid.

"I could hire you as an assistant," House replied simply. "If you're thinking of sticking around."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Jesse was already rethinking the offer he'd made, or rather the offer he'd deduced, by the time he and House arrived at the doctor's apartment. This all seemed way too easy, or way too weird, or some bizarre combination of the two. Not that "weird" was new for him; after all, ever since Mr. White had walked into his life, everything had been turned upside down and there hadn't been time and he hadn't had the ability to set it right again. There had been moments when things felt okay – Jane, things had felt okay with Jane – but that had fallen to hell too, because of him.

House was beginning to rethink the deal, too. As much as House hadn't ever shied away from risky or reckless behavior, this may have been setting some sort of new standard. After all, Jesse – if that was even his real name – had admitted to killing a man. He'd admitted to being a drug manufacturer. Even if he could help House with his addiction – that was, in keeping it going – it might just be way too much of a risk. If Jesse decided to knock House over and rob him blind, after all, what was House going to do to stop it?

But there wasn't much time to go back, which went it was pointless to dwell and rethink. House fished his key out of his pocket and unlocked his door, ushering Jesse inside.

In a way, as much as it was reckless, it was kind of exciting. Like being in an old Western – he could picture Jesse's photograph plastered in a poster at the post office, or maybe the Princeton Police Station, with "WANTED" written across it, with a beige tint to the whole thing. And any moment, the sheriff – maybe that asshole Tritter, if he was still snooping around – would come through the swinging doors with a gun and demand that Jesse put his hands in the air, because the town wasn't big enough for the both of them… which would lead to House making some kind of quip regarding Tritter's weight.

As awkward as it was to have his thoughts drift over to his old nemesis, it seemed more comforting than thinking about why he had invited this ne'er-do-well into his home. Was he just that lonely? Or was there some other reason?

House brushed it to the back of his mind. _Forget it. If I wanted to analyze myself, I'd call Wilson._

"Welcome to the Casa… de Casa," House quipped dryly. "You can sleep on my couch. If you try and steal anything, I'll beat you over the head with my cane." The threat had no force behind it, and Jesse chuckled darkly.

"I don't steal, actually," he replied.

"But you're a drug dealer and a murderer… but you don't steal," House qualified, and Jesse shrugged.

"You're the one who wants my services. You're a drug addict, apparently – and, fuck it, so am I. I did the rehab thing."

"Oh? That's nice," House replied blandly. "So did I."

"Worked about as well for you?" Jesse asked, and House shrugged. "They tell you to… accept, but how can you accept when you do something horrible? When you destroy everything that's worth anything at all. When a life is on your hands."

House wished he couldn't relate, wanted to tell himself that he couldn't relate to this kid's words, but his mind kept piping away the name, _Amber, Amber, Amber. _

The name that had haunted him, had taken wing in hallucinations and accused him, reminded him of the part he played. Was that really so different than what Jesse had done?

"Life is on my hands in my job all the time," House said instead. There was no way that he wanted Jesse rooting around in his mind, even if he'd dressed in up in half-truths like he had with Eve that one time. He couldn't shake the feeling that Jesse would see right through to whatever he had really meant to say, so better not to tell him anything. Better, instead, to just figure this out and get what he needed, before getting Jesse Pinkman on his way and forever out of his life.

After all, that's what would be best for Pinkman, too, wouldn't it? Nothing good tended to come from any long-term involvement with Greg House.

Again the voice in his head whispered, _Amber._

He hushed it by offering Jesse a drink, which the young man declined.

"I just… want to sit down and chill out, I guess," he explained. "I've been… I don't know. Not using and I can't sit still. I don't think drinking's good for me right now."

"And dehydration is?" House retorted. "I'll get you a glass of water." Jesse shrugged, and House made his way, cane alongside foot, to the kitchen while Jesse took a seat on the couch.

"This is all kinda weird," Jesse called from his spot. "I'm still not quite understanding this. But… that's okay, as long as I have somewhere to sleep." He laughed nervously. "I guess I'm still not convinced you don't want sex in exchange for letting me stay here. I mean you're kind of old and…"

"You're kind of hot?" House retorted, returning with a glass of water. "Tragically, my heart belongs to another. But thanks for playing. Keep mentioning it and I might suspect that you want that kind of trade." Jesse screwed his nose up.

"Um, no thanks," he replied as he reached out and took the water, bringing it to his lips and slowly taking a drink as his hands shook. "God, I need crystal. I need my life to be simple… and somewhere else. Fuck, I need anything… I don't know." He looked up at House. "What do you need?" House shrugged and moved to sit down next to Jesse on the couch. He moved uncomfortably close, getting a childish kick out of watching the younger man gaze at him nervously.

"I need things to be complicated," he replied simply. "So I guess you're fucked."


End file.
